In the Still of the Night
by TheRedStarAtNight
Summary: For all the horrors he's endured, for all the atrocities he's committed and for all the atonement he's been striving for, there is one secret Bucky has been keeping from everyone - how Hydra finally broke him.


This story is a sort of missing scene from my first fic, "Reconciliation" and set before its sequel "Caging Demons", but it can be read as a stand alone.

In the Still of the Night  
2014 The Red Star At Night

Neither man was particularly amenable to the cold, especially the snow and ice. Yet they found themselves trekking up a steep, rocky slope as the powerful winds that wound between the peaks and crevasses of the mountain pass chilled them to the bone. Steve lead the way, carving deep trenches in the fresh powder while Bucky followed, his head down, stepping where Steve had. Both men had somber thoughts inside their heads. They didn't want to be in this place, surrounded by wilderness and heading towards a secluded Hydra base. While the Carpathian Mountains were significantly smaller than the Swiss Alps, they were no less treacherous and their gorges no less perilous. Each time either man looked over the edge to the right of the path they made, they felt a wave of nausea build up inside him as they were assaulted by the memories of one fateful mission decades ago.

Catching up to Steve, Bucky lay his hand on his best friend's shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. They'd reached the plateau and Bucky feared that Steve had been so lost in thought he might've walked himself right over the edge. The day was waning and it looked maybe as if it would snow again over night.

Steve turned and looked back at his friend, seeing his open, but concerned face. He stopped and surveyed the land around him and sighed.

They'd been climbing for hours after Nick Fury had deposited them at the base of the mountain with their gear and the mission brief. Operating outside of the cover of S.H.I.E.L.D. was proving to be equally as challenging and dangerous as it had been within it. The saving grace was that there were fewer protocols and rules to obey. Bucky and Steve could conduct themselves as they saw fit. Of course, things never strayed too far from the moral right so long as Steve was involved. Bucky was learning to be himself again and therefore followed his friend's lead. But, he remembered the war and remembered the things he'd done. He remembered his role in the Howling Commandos as Steve's second. He remembered killing in the dark and not making a sound.

"Time to make camp?" Steve asked, the weariness evident in his voice. His body was made to endure, but the spirit less so. They could've each scaled the mountain side until dawn and not truly tired, but thoughts of what first light would bring wore them down. Two men, two superior and adept men, against hundreds of Hydra forces. The only sure thing was that they'd have each other's backs, and wouldn't give up without a fight, and die trying if they had to. There was also the unspoken promise that under no circumstance would one leave the other behind.

Bucky nodded, rolling his shoulders under the heavy weight of the pack he wore, not to mention the weaponry strapped to his body. His left arm seemed to ache, and Bucky didn't understand it. The metal was cold to the touch, naturally, but it had never given him pain. He half wondered if it was in his head and the pain stemmed from his body remembering that it had once been flesh and bone.

"Yeah, Steve, it'll be dark in an hour," Bucky replied.

Steve looked at his friend and felt like he was seeing a ghost. Standing against the backdrop of a snowy forest, he could easily picture them seventy some years ago. Bucky's hair was short again and while the guise of the Winter Soldier had faded over time, there was still something about his friend that made him different than the Bucky he'd known. Steve identified what it was - Bucky's eyes. They harboured years of pain and anguish that couldn't be masked. Though this truth remained, Steve saw past it with ease. Bucky wasn't the same man, but neither was he. Too much had happened for either man to expect them to stay the same kids they'd been in Brooklyn. However, what did remain was their friendship and nothing had yet been able to break that bond completely. Steve believed that if Bucky could come back from being the mindless tool of Hydra, he could stand against anything the powers that be saw fit to assault him with.

The pair found a space set between four large, sturdy firs. First, they tempered down the snow and made certain it was stable beneath them. They were on a flat of land, but the terrain around them was still unpredictable, as was the weather. Tony Stark, marvel and genius that he was, had given them the prototype of what he was sure was going to make him another billion. If they failed to return with it however, Steve had promised to run the New York Marathon naked. The tent, strung between the four trees, was large enough for the two men along with their equipment and weapons. The surface of the fabric from which it was virtually invisible against the wilderness, bending and refracting light until only the keenest eyes or technology could detect it. Furthermore, it was, Tony swore to the heavens, bullet proof.

The other boon was that their lodgings for the night proved quite capable to retaining heat. Both men ran hot due to their enhanced physiques and metabolisms, and along with the heating elements also provided by their inventive friend, they were assured a relatively peaceable night. It was a welcomed reprieve given what the coming day would bring. The howl of the rising wind sent a tremor through Bucky. It seemed everything reminded him of something unpleasant from the past. The winter of 1944 felt acutely close given their environment and it unsettled him. He closed his eyes for a moment and reminded himself who he was and all he'd seen and done to now find himself along side the one man he trusted above all others. The machinations of the universe saw fit to give them a second chance nearly a century after their supposed deaths. He wasn't one for believing in miracles, but he was surely able to count his blessings. The only thing missing was Natasha, but he understood why it was vital for him and Steve to be alone.

Scrounging inside his backpack he found one of the silver foil sachets that would provide him with dinner. Another of Stark's creations - one only needed to burst the bubble of the top left corner and a chemical reaction in the packet would heat up the contents. He examined it and frowned as he read the label. He didn't recognize half the ingredients.

"Steve?"

"Yeah, Buck?"

"What the hell is Vindaloo?"

Steve laughed. "Um, I'm pretty sure it's from India - spicy, knowing Tony."

"Y'know, I've been back in the world for what? Nine months? And I still don't half of what's what."

"You liked spicy."

"You know that's not what I meant."

Steve sighed and found his own dinner - beef stew - and offered it to Bucky, who waved him off. "Sorry, Buck. I do know."

"Don't worry about it. I'm doing better. I'm just grateful, really. There are times though, I'm still... still..."

"Still the Winter Soldier. I see it, but I'm grateful too, since I know he's got my back every bit as much as you do. He's as much a part of you as Bucky Barnes."

"I've been the Winter Soldier longer than I was Bucky. I mean me. I'm Bucky. I have to tell myself that sometimes." Steve gave him a look, one full of pathos. Bucky was used to it. It didn't bother him like it used to. Steve didn't mean any harm by anything towards him.

"That's not true. You were Bucky for twenty-six years..."

"And the Winter Soldier for over seventy. You forget how to count?" Steve wasn't getting his ire up, but Bucky was confused.

"How often were you out of cryo-stasis? How long were your missions? How often were you training students in the Red Room? Does it add up to more than twenty-six years?"

Bucky paused. Steve's line of questioning had never occurred to him before now, and now that he was made to think of it, Steve was right. Bucky couldn't hide the sudden spark of joy the epiphany brought him. He looked to Steve, who smiled. Bucky nodded and smiled back. "Thanks." The word came out softly and reverently. He could've hugged Steve in the moment. He cleared his throat and tore open the meal packet, giving it a sniff as the steam rolled out. "Vindaloo, huh? It's gotta be better than army rations, right?"

"Anything's better than powdered eggs, boiled potatoes and Spam."

The pair ate in companionable silence, listening to the wind howl outside as the snow came down in droves. Bucky made a mental note to ask that the next time Fury offered up an assignment that it be somewhere nice and temperate - like Southern Italy or California. Time passed and shortly after they'd finished their meal, it was time to attempt to get in a few hours of sleep. They had no use or need for sleeping bags or pillows, both men still acclimated to the conditions they'd endured during the war. Back then the cold, hard earth had been their beds and a rock or tree root served as a pillow. In this instance, their packs would suffice to cushion their heads and both men were plenty warm enough in their uniforms.

Bucky still lay with a sense of dread as he attempted to calm his mind and let sleep come. After the fall from the Hellicarrier, he'd endured months of erratic, disturbed slumber often plagued with nightmares of the most horrific sort. He relieved his early days under Hyrdra's captivity when he was still fully himself. The torture, the beatings, the electroshock 'therapy' and the sinister way in which they butchered his body and his mind were all laid out for him again in vivid colour and sensation. His mind never allowed him the luxury of seeing it from a far, but rather forced him to relive it all again. Sometimes he was Bucky, behind the Winter Soldier's eyes forced to watch in abject revulsion as he murdered targets. And then sometimes he remembered being strapped into the machine and what they did to his brain as he was wiped. He remembered pain and would wake screaming in agony.

When that happened Natasha had been by his side to break him out of it, to comfort and soothe him and to give him the physical release that would calm him and lull him back to sleep. She loved him and nurtured him and now she was thousands of miles away. Beside him Steve snored softly. The big lug always could fall asleep at the drop of hat. Give him five minutes and he'd get in a good four minutes of rest. That hadn't been the case before the serum had changed him. Bucky remembered countless restless nights when he'd kept watch over his ailing and infirm friend as he struggled through another bout of pneumonia or influenza. Bucky remembered praying and begging God to let him keep Steve with him. So far those prayers continued to be answered.

Turning on his side, Bucky examined the outline of friend's profile in the scant luminescence the inner lining of the tent gave off. The pair had used to huddle together for warmth during the coldest winter nights in their apartment in Brooklyn, mostly so Steve didn't damn well die in the night. In a way Bucky missed that time, them against the world. He fell asleep to the sound of his friend's strong, steady breaths and the images of their youth behind his eyes.

For a moment Steve thought they were under siege as the angry snarls spouted in Russian shocked him from his sleep. Why were they speaking Russian? They were in Romania. His eyes widened in horror as he came face to face with the barrel of a gun held in a cold metal hand. Bucky's eyes were blown black and there was little to nothing of his best friend behind them. Steve assessed the situation and dare not move or speak less he accidentally prompted the Winter Soldier to pull the trigger. After a moment Steve came to realize that Bucky was still asleep. Natasha had warned him, but after the weeks of travelling and sleeping each night sharing hotel rooms or out in the wild, Bucky hadn't had an episode. Carefully, Steve sat himself up and with measured movements went to take the gun from Bucky's hand and hopefully break him free of whatever held him in his nightmare.

Steve jolted when his friend's face crumbled and he let out a plaintive, wounded sound that went straight to Steve's gut. The gun fell from Bucky's hand and Steve quickly took it away. He watched as Bucky's eyes blinked in rapid succession as he came out of the dream he'd been trapped in. He saw clarity and consciousness on his friend's face and he felt relieved, but only to find himself at a loss and outright scared as Bucky let out an inhuman cry so loud that Steve's ears hurt. Clutching his head in both hands, Bucky cried out again, his entire body shaking violently. Acting purely on instinct, Steve reached for him, pulling Bucky into his arms and enfolding him in the protective cocoon of his arms. The cries descended into outright screams and while they were muffled against Steve's chest, they sounded incredibly loud.

At a loss as to what else to do, Steve continued to hold Bucky as the other man sobbed and clutched at him desperately, his hands clawing for purchase against the rigidity of Steve's uniform. Bucky's breakdown continued on and show no signs of ceasing.

"C'mon, Buck, you're scaring the hell out of me! Whatever it is, you're with me, you're safe." Steve continued to speak soothing words and held fast to Bucky until finally the other man sagged and his sobs quieted to weeping. At that point, Steve's only thought was to hold his friend tighter. He stroked the back of Bucky's head with his hand and held him. Steve closed his eyes and let Bucky take the time he needed, even if it was all night and they had to abandon the mission. He'd read the file Natasha had given him, but while it detailed how Bucky had resisted and fought against being programmed, Steve still couldn't realistically grasp how horrific it had been for his friend. He imagined the worst he could and knew it probably didn't even scratch the surface of reality. Bucky hadn't shared any real details with him. He both envied Natasha for having been with him in the beginning, but also was eternally grateful she had been. He didn't think he'd have been the kind of help Bucky had needed and now on a mountain side in Romania, Steve felt totally useless.

With effort, Bucky pushed himself off Steve, sitting back and letting out mighty growl. His face was a mess, drenched in tears and saliva. His flesh hand was trembling and he ran it through his sweat drenched hair. "Fuck!" he cursed. The hand of his metal arm was in a fist and Steve worried he might actually break himself. Tentatively, Steve close his hand around Bucky's, earning both his attention and his ire. Bucky shot Steve a look that spoke volumes. He wasn't angry at Steve but at himself.

"Remember the winter of '39?" Steve asked. Bucky's brows furrowed, searching the recesses of his mind as well as trying to figure out what the hell Steve was on about. "I nearly died. I had pneumonia. I'd torn the cartilage on my ribs from coughing up that nasty green bloody phlegm I was pale as a ghost, couldn't keep a thing down, running a fever. I could barely hear a word you said cause of the fluid in my ears. And that one night when you got the doctor to come see me and he told you he'd be back in the morning with the undertaker to collect my body because he expected me to be dead in the next few hours?" Bucky held his tongue and swallowed hard. He remembered. "I was delirious for the most part, but I remember you crawling into bed with me and holding me in your arms so I wouldn't have to die alone. You told me that I was the best friend you could've ever hoped for, that you thought of me as your brother and that you loved me. You told me that you were sorry you couldn't help me, couldn't save me. But we both know that you did."

"All I did was keep you warm," Bucky murmured.

"You gave me the will to live, to fight back and to hang on just enough so that when the doc came back and found me still breathing, that maybe he'd actually try and help."

"You were just too damn stubborn to die. Say it, then, whatever this trip down memory lane's been leading to."

"Your first words to me in over seventy years were _Who the hell is Bucky? _I'm tell you here and now that he is the best man I know. He's also the strongest. I'm a hero to millions of people..." Bucky snorted and the corner of his mouth quirked up. "Yeah, I know how the sounds, but shut up jerk, and let me have my say. I'm a hero to millions of people, but you are my hero."

"And you're out of your mind."

"You're the best friend I could've ever hoped for, you're my brother and I love you."

Bucky sniffed and wiped a stray tear from his cheek. "It was just another nightmare, I have them just about every night, nothing new."

"This one was different." Bucky's shoulders slumped and he let out a shuddering breath. The moment the tension in his metal hand eased, Steve took the opportunity to slip his palm against Bucky's, taking a firm grip, knowing it registered touch nearly as acutely as his one of flesh and bone.

"I killed you." His chin dropped to his chest, but he kept speaking. "You're not usually in my dreams, believe it or not. You, well, Captain America, crops up, but not you. Not the Steve from before. I was on a mission, I was... the other guy. I was hunting for Captain America and the intel told me I'd find him back in Brooklyn in our old apartment. For some reason your Ma was there too even though I knew she was long gone. I put a bullet in her first and when you came out of your room to see what was happening - you were you, before the serum - and I said to you in Russian, _It's the end of the line_, and then I shot you too. And as your blood started seeping into your shirt you said my name and suddenly I wasn't the Winter Soldier anymore and I didn't know a single word of Russian. I was me, the same me that you grew up with. I saw what I'd done and it was me that has shot you, not him. It was me who'd killed you. You fell, I caught you and there was just blood everywhere, you gave me this damn pathetic look and died in my arms... that's when I woke up. And look, you don't need to mollycoddle me like I'm some dame..."

"You're too damn ugly to be a dame, and don't let Natasha hear you talking like that. I meant what I said, that you're the strongest person I know. The fact that you're here with me now is proof enough."

"They turned me into a monster, they ate up my soul until there was nothing left."

"Your file said it took them almost a year to finally break you. A whole year, Buck! A year of experiments, torture, beatings, starvation, making you watch as they did it to other people and kept you helpless to do anything about it and after that year when they still couldn't get to you they put you on ice until they thought up a new way to wreck you."

"You wanna know what finally did it?" Steve didn't, but this was the first time Bucky had ever gone in depth about what had happened and Steve needed to know. He moved in a little closer, putting his other arm around his friend's shoulders, urging him to continue. "Not even Natasha knows." Bucky leaned against the strong solid mass of Steve's body, taking the comfort offered, thinking it ironic how their roles had reversed. He felt raw and helpless, but something about his friend always gave him enough to hang on and get through anything. "I was awake when I was in the cryo-chamber."

"Awake?"

"My body was frozen, my heart had stopped and most of my autonomic system had shut down, but inside my head - I was awake."

"Jesus, Buck." Steve choked on anything else he might've conjured to say. Bucky began shaking again and Steve felt at a total loss. He could barely wrap his mind around the concept, let alone empathize.

Bucky's head dropped against Steve shoulder. A terrible shudder went through him and he began to speak again. "My eyes were closed, of course, couldn't see a thing, but I knew I was awake because I remembered my name, I remembered falling from the train. I remembered you reaching for me and I remembered waking up when they were sawing my arm off at the joint. I kept telling myself to stay calm, because Steve wouldn't give up on me, he was searching for me right now and any minute he'd come busting through the door and get me the hell outta here. Then sometimes, I would dream, all kinds of things - us when we were kids, my mother, even Dum Dum and the others. But I'd always wake up and remember. But then it all blurred together and I couldn't tell what was real and what was a dream. Then the screaming started. I thought it was somebody else for the longest time, but it was me. I was screaming and nobody would help me. I screamed for you to please hurry the hell up and get me out of there. I screamed for you. I begged God to let you save me, but no one ever heard me. No one came. You never came."

Steve hadn't realized he was crying until he felt Bucky's thumb swipe across his cheek. "S'okay, Steve," Bucky whispered. "I don't blame you. Eventually I just decided it was time to forget, I guess. Tucked Bucky Barnes away with Brooklyn, whiskey, movies and little Steve Rogers, somewhere safe for later. Besides, I know now that you were on ice and it makes it easier. I know you didn't abandon me."

"Bucky..." Steve voice was strained and Bucky immediately felt guilty.

He reached across and took hold of Steve's forearm with his hand. The pair found themselves in an awkward embrace, but neither one made to let go. "I'm sorry, I'm an asshole, forget I said that. I know you'd never have abandoned me. Hell, if I didn't have whatever fucked up juice Zola pumped me full of, I'd have died from that fall. You weren't to know. And then you couldn't because you'd gone and a goddam suicide mission and put your plane in the ocean!"

"It wasn't suicide, I didn't have a choice..."

"Yeah, well if I'd been there..."

"I'd have told you to parachute out..."

"And then I would've either dragged you with me, or strapped myself down next to you."

"Till the end of the line."

"Yeah, till the end of the line, only I don't think there'll ever be an end for us. We couldn't give up on each other if our lives literally depended on it. Not then, not now."

"We're the only family we have left." It was the truth and both men knew it. They had friends, they had lovers, but none of that could hold a candle to what they meant to each other. They were brothers in every way but blood. They were more than that, too, even if they couldn't quite define it and they'd given up trying to. There was no point in questioning it either. "So, you can stop trying to protect me. You've been protecting me my who life, it's my turn now. I want you to stop pretending that you're fine, 'cause I know now you're not, Buck. I want you to tell me everything you remember about what happened after you fell from the train. A burden shared is a burden halved. I know Nat's heard a lot of it, but I think I deserve to as well."

"Never wanted you to know. I couldn't live with seeing that look in your eye, that look you've got now, like I really am some damn hero to you, I couldn't live seeing it change. There's too much blood on my hands, Steve, too much death. They ain't ever coming clean. There's some things that just can't be forgiven. We were good Catholic boys, remember? I know I'm going to hell in the end. I could spend the rest of my life trying to atone, but I'll never get clean."

"That's not true..." Steve paused, tightening his hold on Bucky. He wanted to tell him all about the conversation he'd had with Tony about his parents and what the Winter Solider had done and how in the end, Tony straightened his back and said he didn't hold Bucky responsible. But Steve knew that wasn't what Bucky needed here and now. He _was_ a good Catholic boy, and he felt it down to his soul that God would forgive his friend. He thought however that it would be small consolation to his friend. What Bucky needed was to hear the words from the one person he was too scared to ask it of. So with that, Steve spoke them. "I forgive you. I forgive you."

Upon hearing those words, Bucky fell apart again.

An hour later, after Bucky had rung himself dry of tears and recriminations, the pair lay side by side. They were closer than before, shoulders and hips touching.

There was no question about the mission in Steve's mind, there hadn't been before the night's emotional purge, but he now felt heartened. Every step forwards for he and for Bucky was a victory. Plus, it felt like a weight had been lifted from both their shoulders. There would be hard times ahead, once Bucky started sharing his memories about all that Hydra had forced him to do, but Steve welcomed the turmoil to come, safe within the knowledge that it would be helping the person he loved best in the world piece themselves back together. He was still scared though. Less than an hour ago, Bucky had been _sobbing_ in his arms. Steve hoped he could be half as good to him as Natasha had been. He had faith. How could he not, with his best friend having come back to him after being lost for over seventy years.

"I love Natasha," Bucky said into the dark, breaking the silence. Steve made a noise of affirmation, feeling the pull of sleep, but listening attentively. Over the few years since New York with the Avengers, he'd come to regard Natasha as one of his closest friends. "I love her with everything in me and I want to spend the rest of my life with her, but for as far back as I can remember, with everything I have been through, especially in the last year, and when I think to the future, I know that out of everyone it's you I love the most in the whole world." Steve felt humbled and went to reply, but Bucky whacked Steve's thigh with his left hand and barked out a laugh that warmed Steve's heart. "...but you're still a punk."

Steve smiled. "I love you too, Buck."

The End


End file.
